As evening approached, Jiang Chen moved back to Old Jack's large courtyard. That very night, they had a sumptuous dinner, which made Old Jack grin from ear to ear.
Old Jack carefully took out the old liquor he had been cherishing for many years, reluctantly poured half a bowl for himself, and gave Jiang Chen just a small sip.
In the end, Old Jack's face was flushed red from drinking, and he passed out on the table.
Jiang Chen carried Old Jack to bed, tidied up a bit, and then climbed onto the roof.
Nighttime was his time for cultivation. Even though he had already awakened with innate full soul power, he still would never slack off.
According to the book by Yu Xiaogang, after soul power reaches the upgrade threshold, because there is no soul ring, it cannot advance. Continuing to cultivate won't show an increase in soul power level, but once a soul ring is obtained, that accumulated soul power will all manifest at once.
As usual, he circulated his cultivation technique without attaching his martial soul. His body directly entered a zombie-like state; in this condition, it was easiest to absorb the essence of the moon.
However, as soon as he began cultivating, he noticed something different.
He could actually perform inner vision!
It was as if inspiration had struck him; the moment he started cultivating, he discovered he could look inside himself.
In his spiritual perception, the inner force of the Heavenly Corpse Transformation, which was soul power in this world, was flowing along various meridians, ultimately converging like hundreds of rivers returning to the sea, pouring into his dantian.
When his spiritual sense reached the dantian, he was instantly stunned by the sight inside.
There was actually a perfectly round object inside his dantian, about the size of a ping-pong ball. All the soul power flowing back from the meridians was being absorbed into this round ball.
The ball looked very strange: one half was pitch-black like ink, the other half dazzling with golden light. The aura it emitted felt extremely familiar to Jiang Chen.
The black half clearly carried the aura of his zombie martial soul; it was of the same origin as the inner force he had cultivated before.
The golden half was the aura of that golden lightning, which had never appeared before. It only emerged today during martial soul awakening, when it suddenly showed up and "drove away" that five-colored divine thunder.
"What exactly is this thing? Why couldn't I sense it at all before?" Jiang Chen was extremely shocked, but even more filled with confusion.
Such a big object was sitting inside his stomach. Logically speaking, he should have felt something, yet he had never felt any foreign sensation at all.
"Could this be… an inner core?"
Curious, Jiang Chen couldn't help but draw his spiritual sense closer, wanting to see if he could obtain any information.
However, moments later, he regretted it.
The instant his spiritual sense touched the round ball, a vast torrent of memories suddenly poured into his mind. Those memories were incredibly immense, as if they spanned thousands upon thousands of years.
With such an enormous volume of memories suddenly flooding into his soul, how could Jiang Chen possibly withstand it? The moment the excruciating pain in his soul struck, his legs stiffened, his eyes bulged, and he fainted directly.
How could the impact on the soul be something an ordinary person could endure? Even while unconscious, Jiang Chen's body kept convulsing nonstop. That adorable little face was now twisted almost beyond recognition.
[Ding, the host has activated the inheritance. The Super Zombie Evolution System is activating. System loading…]
…
Jiang Chen felt as if he had a dream. In the dream, he watched as a zombie grew from a spectator's perspective.
This zombie was cultivated by drinking blood for a thousand years, reaching the Flying Zombie realm. It could soar through the skies and burrow into the earth, and it fed on powerful cultivators, striking terror into everyone's hearts.
Ten thousand years later, the zombie reached an even more terrifying level, practically indestructible and immortal, an existence feared even by immortals and devils.
At that moment, this zombie welcomed the most powerful heavenly tribulation of its life, the tribulation it faced when evolving into a "Drought Demon" (Bà).
This tribulation was the strongest in history, causing heaven and earth to change color and all living beings to tremble. In the end, under this heavenly tribulation, the zombie was reduced to flying ashes, leaving behind only one Corpse Core.
The Corpse Core was pursued by heavenly lightning, passing through planes. When it passed Earth, it turned an unlucky young man into ashes, before finally arriving in the Douluo Continent and entering the already lifeless body of an infant…
…
The morning sunlight wasn't scorching, but it was still quite dazzling. Jiang Chen lay on the roof, feeling somewhat uncomfortable.
His consciousness gradually returned, and he felt as though something was pecking at his face.
Slowly opening his eyes, he saw a little bird standing on his nose, occasionally pecking at him.
"Stop it." He swatted the bird away and sat up.
"Who am I? Where am I?" He looked somewhat dazed. It took quite a while before he remembered who he was.
Memories from his previous life and the six years of memories in the Douluo Continent surged forth together. He remembered his name was Jiang Chen.
He recalled how last night, during cultivation, his spiritual sense had touched the bead inside his dantian, and then he inexplicably fainted and had a very strange dream.
The entire dream had already become blurry, but whenever he tried to recall it, it would become clear again.
Thinking of the final part of the dream, where the Corpse Core arrived in the Douluo Continent, Jiang Chen suddenly trembled all over. There was also a bead inside his own body!
"Could it be… everything wasn't just a dream?"
Jiang Chen hurriedly gathered his spiritual sense back into his dantian and once again saw the bead quietly swallowing and spitting out soul power.
One half of the bead was black, the other half golden. The golden half even seemed to have faint traces of lightning flickering across its surface.
Once again, the final scene from the dream flashed through Jiang Chen's mind, the golden lightning chasing after the black Corpse Core, all the way until it arrived in the Douluo Continent…
Like clouds parting to reveal a clear sky, everything suddenly became clear to Jiang Chen. He finally understood why he had come to the Douluo Continent, and that the round thing inside his body was actually the Corpse Core, and it seemed to have even fused with that terrifying heavenly lightning.
Even now, recalling the life of that zombie, Jiang Chen still felt deeply shaken.
That existence was truly too powerful, born from the resentment of heaven and earth, feeding on blood, neither entering reincarnation nor falling into hell. It defied heavenly punishment and lightning strikes, roaming the Nine Heavens above and the Netherworld below, the ultimate yin, the ultimate evil…
And it had died under the heavenly tribulation it faced when trying to advance to an even higher realm. Through that zombie's memories, Jiang Chen gained some understanding of that higher realm.
That realm was called "Bà" (Drought Demon), also known as "Drought Bà". Wherever a Drought Demon passed, the land would become scorched for thousands of miles, and it carried a terrifying plague capable of destroying the world. It fed on dragons, and even gods and devils feared it.
At that realm, almost nothing in heaven and earth could threaten it; heaven could not destroy it, earth could not bury it.
While Jiang Chen was lost in thought, a cute loli voice suddenly rang out in his mind without warning, startling him so badly he almost rolled off the roof.
[Congratulations to the host for awakening your martial soul. The Super Zombie Evolution System has been activated. A Newbie Gift Pack has been specially awarded.]
Jiang Chen stared blankly for a long while before suddenly bursting into wild laughter. The triumphant joy in that laughter was obvious to anyone who heard it.
The little black sparrow flew onto Jiang Chen's shoulder, seeming quite happy as well — though its eyes were somewhat dull and lacked spirituality.
"Go on, go play by yourself." Jiang Chen smiled. This was his corpse puppet, completely under his control. Normally, it served as his eyes; nothing that happened in Holy Soul Village could escape his observation.
"What exactly is in the Newbie Gift Pack?" Jiang Chen's eyes sparkled with excitement.